Posted by:
PrinzHilde (---.dip0.t-ipconnect.de)
(Dodecaphonics is the same as 12 tone music, only in latin)
Hanns Eisler wrote a number of songs to poems by Bert Brecht using 12 tone. They are suprisingly catchy. His explanation for that is something that a lot of modern composers should take to their heart:
He now wanted to show also on the instance of vocal compositions...that you can "make music with the 12 tone technique in a way that is simple, easy to understand and logic...To prove this was in particular essential since at large, works that are written in the 12 tone system are factured in such an overly complex way that one has to ask: Is this method of composing inevitably combined with such a complicated diction, or would this method allow for a simple style, suitable also for the broad masses?"
The songs are the first (1938) version of the three elegies "To those who come after (An die Nachgeborenen)", and one from the children's songs "Kleines Bettellied (Singt noch einmal ein Lied)" which I haven't found a translated title for. If you can get hold of them, try them out!
Edit: I found one source naming the poem "Little begging song". Its text seems to have been translated in
Bertolt Brecht: Poems 1913-1956, but I know of no english song version.
Edit2: You shouldn't give links you have not tried out yourself. I just gave a link to a sound sample of the song, but then I found out it is the version by Paul Dessau, not the one by Eisler.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/2007 12:32AM by PrinzHilde.